This site is dedicated to my spiritual and physical journey before and after the death of my husband and the father of my son from cancer. It is about grieving, loving, understanding and sharing, and living in the connection while accepting the physical separation that passing on brings. It is also about moving forward in your life from whatever challenges life hands you and living the life that is wanted for you from above.

When Tradition Doesn’t Work…

This may not be the case for everyone but it certainly has been mine. And I’ve watched the same happen to my son as well. This has to do with traditions. What I have learned since living through a whole year of firsts after my husband died is that sometimes the things we did as a family or as a couple that made wonderful memories and traditions no longer work for us.

Sadly through grief, sometimes the favourite places and things and food that we experienced in the past that hold the best memories were the most painful ones after my husband passed. It’s very counterintuitive. I believe that when we continue re-living these experiences they often bring on tremendous grief and pain. I believe this is sometimes where we who are grieving can get stuck. The re-living of favourite habits, rituals, and traditions can bring on the sharp pain of the physical separation in grief, especially if it is too soon after losing a loved one. For my son and myself, we had to first go through a period of learning about ourselves and find our new normal. Our “wholeness” as a family is gone from us and we are healing through the void of absence of my husband and my son’s father. For example, cooking in the kitchen and spending time creating new dishes was a passion of mine that I shared with my husband. After he passed that passion was too painful to get right back into. For my son- he no longer wanted to play the game of hockey. It’s too close a memory for him that he associates with his dad. He now loves the game of football. We have found new, different activities and interests that are not attached to memories. This change has been helpful and healing.

Time is not collectively answered here as it is different for everyone. But for me and my son the early steps of acceptance and learning needed to take place first or we could have fallen back into re-living the past in our present behaviours. That would have been a very painful place to get stuck. I’m glad we branched out into the new and different this past year. I think it propelled us forward towards finding our “new normals”. Now we can embrace past rituals and traditions with happiness and with our hearts full of gratitude for the memories.

Thank you for all the feathers you left us this weekend, Jordon! We noticed and we believe! 👼🌊🐠

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Holly C Barker

My name is Holly Barker and I am the founder of Grief Anonymous, a support organization for grief and loss. I am also the founder of the Grief Resource Network. My husband of 14 years and the father of my son died of Malignant Melanoma skin cancer in 2014. My mission is to write honestly about our journey and to share with those that are going through the loss of a loved one or another challenging experience. I learned through this experience about the process of understanding, accepting what life hands us, and living in the continuum and connectivity to our loved ones that have passed on. If you are stuck and having a difficult time moving forward into the life that is wanted for you from above, follow me on this journey and maybe it will help you, too. Love and Light, Holly